TALK about disorienting. Why is Pat Kenny hosting Liveline in the morning? And was that really Gay Byrne pausing for the Angelus? (We thought only by invoking the name of Emer O'Kelly could he be made to stop.)
As the new Radio 1 season stuttered in last week, the only folks who emerged triumphant were at Met Eireann, where the summer return to reading their own ".55 a.m. forecasts has been made a permanent as anything at RTE. Otherwise, there wasn't much sunshine penetrating the radio centre bunker.
Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) is "evolving", its host told the nation last week. Perhaps that's Montrose speak for "we're still trying to sort out what kind of show this is going to be." Perhaps it means this column should give Pat and company the benefit of the doubt.
There was good stuff here, and the apparent ambition to get lots of listener voices on the air even in recorded form, via a "comment line" is laudable, even if slightly reminiscent of a certain afternoon phone in. Kenny is a bit too slow to end such calls, but they don't drag on nearly as long as the intimate studio interviews that try to work on our heartstrings. Today needs to find its point does, Kenny's intelligence may help it to the live spontaneity usually missing in his old, tightly packaged programme.
By contract, the new Gay Byrne Show (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) sounds like a doddle for its host. It's not quite as music led as we might have expected (nor is its Monday and Tuesday replacement, Upbeat), and the tunes are more sixty something than "classic hits" Benny Goodman, Daniel O'Donnell and Cliff Richard are in there with the Corrs, etc.
The more lightweight talk is familiar too, with cute competitions, a medical queries slot and a bit of nostalgia. In this last realm the show features Cathal O'Shannon every Wednesday with a "this week in history" chat. Last week we heard about Ireland and the world in September 1939, which Gaybo insisted on treating as a light feature.
O'Shannon remembered an excited Christian Brother who poked a mid Atlantic hole in his classroom map. "This is the spot where the U-boats will sink the British fleet Ha, said Gay. Another brother, a head teacher, gave the Nazi salute in class. Ha, ha, ha, ha, said Gay. A new book says the Irish government was co-operating with the RAU to build a refuge in Tipperary for its planes in the event of a German invasion of Britain. Gay nearly burst his britches at the good of this one.
So while the new show is likely to spare us large doses of Gay as Sociologist, Gay as Criminologist and Gay as Political Scientist, we've a weekly sup of Gay as Historian to look forward to.
Which surely beats Gay as Sports Fan. On Wednesday he ruined a perfectly nice, bit-of-a-coup interview with Sonia O'Sullivan with his usual spoofing about sport, awkwardly dropping the names of some of her opponents and asking silly questions that were meant to sound casually knowing.
Like when, all too obviously glancing over notes about Fernanda Ribiero, he asked O'Sullivan "Is it the 5,000 or 10,000 you're running on Saturday?" Sonia running 10,000 metres? Well, I suppose there's a first time for everything.
Neither Pat nor Gay in their new incarnations got anywhere near the scariest interview of the week. That distinction belonged, by my reckoning, to Aine Lawlor and her chat with Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party on Thursday's Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday).
It's wasn't so much what he said though his criticisms of the Rev William McCrea were drily angry, and his defence against charges of being involved with Irish language and dancing classes would have been absurd if it weren't so sad.
No, it was the proverbial way he said it. The usually cool "Hutch", second only to David Ervine among loyalist media performers, was anxious and agitated when discussing the implications of the Billy Wright rally he desperately described threats against his family, in the tones of a man unused to airing dirty linen, but releasing something that had been cooped up too long. This was not mere rhetoric about violence it was palpably close to the real thing.
